The present application relates generally to an improved data processing apparatus and method and more specifically to a personal resources organizer with calendar interface and object detection.
With increased usage of computers in today's society, many people rely more heavily on these computers for organizational purposes. For example, many people look to electronic calendar programs, such as may be provided in Lotus Notes™ available from International Business Machines Corporation or Outlook™ available from Microsoft Corporation, to help organize their appointments, events, and the like. While these electronic calendar programs provide assistance in organizing, remembering, and alerting individuals to appointments and events in their lives, they do have limitations.
For example, in today's society people are much more mobile than in years gone by and often are involved in long distance travel, overseas travel, and the like, where items available at a person's home location are not necessarily available at the destinations to which they travel. Moreover, people run much more busy lives than just a decade ago and are constantly having to go from one event to the next. This is very much the case both in a business context and a personal context. With such an “on the go” society, people are continuously having to prepare for the events in their lives with regard to the items that they are taking with them. Because people's lives are so busy, it is often the case that something gets left behind and is not available when the person arrives at their destination, meeting, event, etc.
For example, in today's business world, people often must be involved in frequent travel and must, consequently, prepare their luggage for such travel. Moreover, people working at customer sites have certain materials that they will need at the customer site depending on the specific customer that they are visiting. As a further example, students often must bring specific books and materials to their classroom depending on the planned activities for the day, e.g., the particular classes that they will be attending. In all these cases, there is a need for the particular person to be personally organized such that they remember which items, materials, etc. to bring with them to the particular event, on the particular travel, or the like. Often people forget something in this process and arrive without the materials that they need to be productive at the destination.
While electronic calendar programs are very good at reminding people of the occurrence of an event, meeting, or the like, they do not have any ability to assist the individual with actually preparing for the event, meeting, etc. in terms of the items, materials, etc. that need to be brought with them.